Season 8 speculation: What started the [SPOILER] at [SPOILER]?
By Corey Smith
What’s a race without a few dark horse contenders?
An angry mob. During season 7, Sansa oversaw the storage of food in Winterfell so she could feed its denizens through the winter. If the Night King drives other Northerners out of their homes, they might rush to Winterfell seeking shelter, only to find that there’s not enough food to go around. From there, things could get ugly.
This theory is supported by a video taken some nights before the blaze. In it, you can hear a group of extras shouting in unison (around the 0:45 mark).
Is someone trying to break down the gate?
The Dragon of Winterfell. A long standing fan theory posits that beneath Winterfell lies a sleeping dragon — how else do you think the hot springs stay so hot? If true, said dragon could destroy Winterfell during its escape.
No, we have no idea what might wake the dragon. Just go with it.
Someone leaves the oven on. You just had to make those lemoncakes, didn’t you, Sansa?
So who’s the most likely culprit? Fun as it sounds, I can’t see Cersei making the effort to burn down Winterfell, at least not after she laid out her plan to let Dany, Jon and the White Walkers kill each other while she remains in King’s Landing.
I think it’s one of the dragons, or possibly all three. There’s going to be some aerial fratricide once Drogon and Rhaegal get a load of their undead brother, and as thrilling as it’ll be to see three full-sized dragons engaged in battle, Winterfell could easily be set ablaze in the crossfire.
Note that just because Winterfell gets set on fire doesn’t mean it has to burn down for good. Aegon the Conquerer torched Harrenhal during his invasion of Westeros, and was still being used 300 years later, even if it had fallen into disrepair. But then again, Aegon only torched the towers, which took quite a beating. From A Clash of Kings:
"Of the castle’s five towers, the shortest is half again as high as the tallest one in Winterfell, yet none of the towers are proper, being bent, lumped, and cracked from the melting of the stone during the burning of Harrenhal by the Targaryen dragons three centuries earlier."
And Winterfell is considerably smaller than Harrenhal. However you slice it, this isn’t good for Stark’s longtime home.
What does everyone else think? Is Winterfell a victim of the series’ first dragon-on-dragon dogfight? Or does everyone underestimate Cersei yet again? Give us your thoughts!
Next: New developments at the Winterfell set make us question what we thought we knew
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